TRASHY GOSSIP

If Scientists Were Tabloid Fodder

I've always wondered what our culture would be like if we obsessed about the private lives and accomplishments of scientists, researchers and great thinkers the same way we obsess over celebrities. Would we follow closely the scandals of scientific study the same way we follow the scandals of Britney or Madonna? Would certain appealing scientists be given their own reality shows? Perhaps Scientific America would become an easy-to-read weekly and Maxim would include a bevy of young female astronomers and genetic researchers in their annual Maxim Hot 100 List.

Scientists aren't known for their style and fashion sense, so they'd be easy targets for the snippy quips of Star magazine's "Star Style Stalkers". Fashion designers would quickly seize the chance to start creating more fashionable lab coats and safety glasses and we'd see them featured as product placements in major motion pictures. Waiting lists would begin for the most sought after designer lab coats and prices would skyrocket once Chanel and Versace got into the game. Soon, Joan Rivers would show up on the red carpet to pick apart those heading to the Dirac Prize awards show and the E! Channel would run all day coverage.

Us Weekly's infamous Just Like Us feature would show us pictures of scientists living their lives in ordinary ways we can identify with. They really are just like us!

Comments

I work in plant genetics and I can tell you that scientists are far more interesting (not to mention beautiful inside) than celebrities could ever hope to be. Thanks for creating this entry, it truly is genius!

you never cease to amaze. I can't really add anything to what everyone has already said. I did make the mistake of watching the Perez Goes Shirtless video ... big mistake. Luckily I had just eaten a light snack & am heading to the gym & i hope, by dinnertime, my subconscious will have kindly banished the memory of the doughboy to the place of forgetfulness, away from easy conscious retrieval - he is actually more unattractive on the INSIDE, don't you think?
But back to YOU, 14 - you are the BOMB. A treasure of the internets. And I love your new art blog as well. Thank you, darling! xox knox

during the renaissance, these 'thinkers' would have been celebrities! I bet the the middle of each quarterly scientific journal has a gossip section, where scholars propose absurd theories to account for each other's scandalous behavior.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph in a hot tub fulla pink lemonade Slurpee: I can't stop laughing. The last guffaw sent some chewed baby carrot through my nostril. Swear to God. Each minute detail, each scalpel-precise visual and verbal slice, is chemically and structurally engineered to pants-wetting perfection.

At the risk of premature hyperbole (since you invariably set the Snark-O-Meter of Brilliance higher with staggering frequency), this is the funniest thing you've ever done; your Citizen Kane; your Sgt. Peppers...Trenchant social satire that goes down smooth but leaves the aftertaste of the best comic cognac ever fashioned. All without deriding the human beings who are the subjects.

What do most actors and musicians do? Entertain us and maybe point our some social issues. Why do they deserve the admiration?

Actors and Musicians are brands. They have to advertise themselves in order to sell their work.

Scientists have to sell themselves too, but only to other scientists. But instead of spending a currency of celebrity, they tend to sell ideas and elegant experimental designs (also, scientists don't always have good people skills).

On the one hand it is absurd. But celebrity journalism reflects the values of our society.

On the other hand, celebrity journalism is an important business tool for actors and musicians. Don't think of them, then, as people, when they show up in the gossip sheets. Think of them as Tide, Tums, and Huggies. Only... with a human face.

Well, I know that was a joke, but that Stephen Hawking does get around a bit. I mean, he divorced his wife of decades, mother of his children, and took up with his best friend's wife (who he also divorced). I wouldn't put it past him to hook up with some showgirls in Vegas... ;)

You know, when I looked at this, I got emotional. I actually started to feel something akin to "how dare you make fun of their dress!!!!"

You look into these people's eyes and there is sincerity and integrity or some kind of substance there. You look into the eyes of the Hollywood scum and you either see complete and utter bullshit, or nothing.

What famous cellular biologist has been sipping from the laboratory specimen jars since finding lurid photos of her gadfly (drosophila priapus)anthropologist husband leeringly surrounded by a gaggle of topless young Giraffe Women - taken when he was supposedly "at work" on a National Geographic assignment? We're not naming names, but someone at Stanford University needs to remind the jilted jeneticist that she won't get any "solutions" from her friend Ethyl.